Managing and building B2B SME brands: an emerging market perspective
Managing and building B2B SME brands: an emerging market perspective
Purpose
This paper aims to distil the management challenge pertaining to B2B SME branding strategy, communication and constraint in the emerging market context of Chinese manufacturing.
Design/methodology/approach
Complemented by 19 interviews, this paper adopted a novel methodological approach – netnographic analysis – to investigate a selection of Chinese manufacturing SMEs.
Findings
Findings revealed three managerial approaches to B2B brand management: conservative, flexible and integrated-exploratory.
Practical implications
Understanding the three approaches offers managerial implications for Chinese manufacturer SMEs to redesign their branding practice. Informed with a better understanding of the available option, they will be able to achieve high value-added production through branding to gain competitiveness. This study sheds light on B2B SME branding from an emerging market perspective, an area that has been largely neglected in the existing literature.
Originality/value
Findings make a novel contribution to B2B SME brand management literature by clarifying practical management issues pertinent to Chinese emerging market manufacturers in particular, and offering widely generalizable lessons for B2B brand management research.
Lin, Fenfang
d2d0fe76-3e6f-488b-94c2-6b0f4c9f08eb
Ansell, Jake
39e3777b-fa93-4624-9252-c6ca837b08ee
Marshall, Alasdair
93aa95a2-c707-4807-8eaa-1de3b994b616
Ojiako, Udechukwu
39f57398-8b7b-422c-9186-6a87c75e0f8f
Lin, Fenfang
d2d0fe76-3e6f-488b-94c2-6b0f4c9f08eb
Ansell, Jake
39e3777b-fa93-4624-9252-c6ca837b08ee
Marshall, Alasdair
93aa95a2-c707-4807-8eaa-1de3b994b616
Ojiako, Udechukwu
39f57398-8b7b-422c-9186-6a87c75e0f8f
Lin, Fenfang, Ansell, Jake, Marshall, Alasdair and Ojiako, Udechukwu
(2019)
Managing and building B2B SME brands: an emerging market perspective.
PSU Research Review.
(doi:10.1108/PRR-04-2019-0010).
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to distil the management challenge pertaining to B2B SME branding strategy, communication and constraint in the emerging market context of Chinese manufacturing.
Design/methodology/approach
Complemented by 19 interviews, this paper adopted a novel methodological approach – netnographic analysis – to investigate a selection of Chinese manufacturing SMEs.
Findings
Findings revealed three managerial approaches to B2B brand management: conservative, flexible and integrated-exploratory.
Practical implications
Understanding the three approaches offers managerial implications for Chinese manufacturer SMEs to redesign their branding practice. Informed with a better understanding of the available option, they will be able to achieve high value-added production through branding to gain competitiveness. This study sheds light on B2B SME branding from an emerging market perspective, an area that has been largely neglected in the existing literature.
Originality/value
Findings make a novel contribution to B2B SME brand management literature by clarifying practical management issues pertinent to Chinese emerging market manufacturers in particular, and offering widely generalizable lessons for B2B brand management research.
Text
10-1108_PRR-04-2019-0010
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 18 July 2019
e-pub ahead of print date: 18 August 2019
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 434430
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/434430
PURE UUID: 71af8b66-942f-4535-8b4e-971eb9a36d58
Catalogue record
Date deposited: 23 Sep 2019 16:30
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 03:17
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Contributors
Author:
Jake Ansell
Author:
Udechukwu Ojiako
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